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Sunday, September 18, 2011

My First Kiss (or: Embarrassing stories from my adolescence)

I'm all finished and ready to (finally) have What I Wish published for the girls, but I can't figure out what printing service to use! I didn't realize I would need months of research in order to determine where I could get the best price. It feels like when I was researching colleges... so difficult to compare! Luckily my dad offered to pay for the publishing, because otherwise I wouldn't be able to publish for another 6 months or more!

In the meantime, I'm going to post a little sample from the book. I think that's fair after asking you all to participate! :) This particular excerpt was written by me, and believe me, I wouldn't be sharing this information with you if I didn't think it would help my nine sweet nieces as they turn into teenagers! This is just downright embarrassing.

Enjoy my humiliation!

My
First Kiss

Maybe
I’m wrong, but I think I wanted my first kiss more than other girls did. Or,
perhaps, just earlier than the other girls I knew. I was fourteen and
absolutely sure I was the only girl left on the planet who hadn’t been kissed
(I was totally wrong about that, btw). Kissing was sure to be the best thing
ever, and I was determined to not be left in the dark any longer.

That
summer was a hot one, and I had a season pass to Lagoon. My best friends and I
spent every available moment there, riding each ride hundreds of times, buying
water at the Arby’s in Pioneer Village for a dime (and laughing our heads off,
because life was fun and carefree then), and mostly just searching out
beautiful boys. We took the term “boy-crazy” to a new level. If I had a quarter
for every time we rode the Colossus – even though we hated that ride – just
because we wanted to be next to a certain guy in line… well, let’s just say I’d
have a lot more quarters in my piggy bank.

I’m
sorry to say, we made a habit of dressing as scantily as possible, so as to
draw the most attention. Our parents didn’t approve of our short skirts and
high heels, of course, but the thing about tiny clothing is that it fits easily
into a purse or backpack. Switching our jeans and sweatshirts for mini-skirts
and tank tops in the public bathroom was a small price to pay for looking “awesome”.

(Now
that I know more about the world, I have no idea how we didn’t end up raped or
worse. Not to mention how silly we must have looked in those trashy, grown-up
outfits. Now when I see girls dressing too old for their age, I just laugh
because they look ridiculous.)

Our
favorite ride was the bumper cars. We had been so many times that we had
memorized exactly which cars drove best, and which ones would leave you stuck
in a corner begging for mercy. The feeling of being a little kid again,
crashing into each other and making a scene was just beyond amazing.

August
11, 1999 was the day, and I’ll never forget because that’s the day Salt Lake
City had an actual tornado. I didn’t know that was happening at the time, and I
was having too much fun to notice the sky growing darker and the wind picking
up as we rode our favorite ride over and over again.

Then
we saw them.

Now
that I look back, I can’t for the life of me figure out why I thought that guy
was so hot… in reality, he was barely taller than me, shaved bald, and extremely arrogant. There was just
something about him that drew me to him. We were used to asking hot guys what
their names were and where they were from, so we didn’t waste any time.

“Ty,”
he told us. I’m pretty sure his friend’s name was Jon, but honestly, I wasn’t
paying much attention to said friend. We spent the next few hours with them,
and eventually we paired off – me with Ty(ler), and my best friend with Jon. It
turns out he was sixteen, and he was in the Navy.

(Just
so you know, sixteen-year-olds can’t join the Navy. Boys lie.)

Now,
everyone knows if a boy suggests getting in line for Dracula’s Castle, he means
to get close to you. It’s the same concept as a scary movie: he expects you to
cuddle up and act all cute and scared, at which point he can swoop in and
“protect” you.

That
was the longest line I ever recall waiting in. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t
mind, because somehow in the course of two hours, he had become comfortable
putting his arms around my waist and kissing the top of my head. I could have
stood there for hours just like that and been completely and utterly happy. My
heart was beating so fast and hard, I was sure he could hear it, and he seemed
to really like me. My friend and his friend were hitting it off, too, so things
were going perfectly. When it was finally our turn to get on the ride, there
was room for four people in the car, but only he and I got in.

You’d
think that I would have seen it coming, then, wouldn’t you?

Yeah,
I guess I was still pretty naïve, because when – in the pitch black – his lips
were on mine, I panicked and
completely froze.

No
joke, I didn’t move a muscle. Kiss him
back, you idiot! I was screaming at myself, but it didn’t translate into
lip action.

Then
it was over. His face disappeared, and in the dark I realized I had just
received – and completely ruined – my first kiss. I stupidly apologized for not
knowing what to do, stating that he caught me off-guard, and I told myself I
would be so amazing the next time he tried to kiss me that he would forget all
about that first sloppy attempt at a kiss.

Except,
he didn’t try to kiss me again. After that he acted really strangely,
completely shut off to me, and I couldn’t understand the change. I kept asking
him what was wrong, and he kept brushing me off, saying it was nothing. That
clearly wasn’t true.

He
broke up with me on the Sky Ride, the slowest ride on Earth. “Just friends,” he
said. The weather had steadily declined, and my perfect summer day turned into
a terrible rainstorm, which perfectly matched the agony in my heart. I felt
torn in two, and I cried like a blubbering baby. To my everlasting shame, I
followed him, asking for another chance, telling him I loved him (LOVED him?!) all the way to the bus
stop.

Behind
the Chevron, waiting for his bus to arrive (how weird, he was going home in the
middle of the day? Apparently I didn’t realize that was because he wanted to
get away from me…), he kissed me so passionately I had no choice but to return
his kisses. Breathless, I was sure he’d changed his mind. No one could have a kiss like that
and walk away from it.

“That
was the perfect goodbye,” he whispered, taking my heart with him as he
disappeared onto the big blue city bus.

I’m
embarrassed to admit it took me one entire year to get over him.

Why
was receiving my first kiss so vastly important to me that I failed to see how
stupid and unnatural it was when it was all happening? Later (at least a year
after my disastrous first experience), I met an amazing boy who practically
worshipped me, and we shared some really special kisses. It turns out when
someone really cares about you, kissing is pretty perfect, just like I’d always
imagined.

It’s
not the act of kissing that makes it dizzying and romantic. Without the
connection of being friends first, kissing is just awkward lips on lips.